


Sink and Rise

by adnauseam



Category: Dark Matter - Michelle Paver
Genre: Canon Divergence, Haunting, M/M, Time Loop, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 18:59:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18610543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adnauseam/pseuds/adnauseam
Summary: Not quite alone.





	Sink and Rise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PositivelyVexed](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PositivelyVexed/gifts).



> See endnotes for (mild) warnings.

 

 

He opens his mouth to the cold, thick sea and drowns, lungs flooding, feeble arms and feeble legs kicking out, flailing out and getting nowhere, nowhere at all. He sinks.

He sinks and doesn’t stop, ever, just this constant spiral downwards, and he must be dead because no sea is as deep as this, as cold as this, as black as this, so he must be dead: he sinks.

He sinks and tries to remember himself, tells himself his name, tells himself all the little things, _I like this I have that I know this I love_ , but none of it lines up exactly, so, he sinks.

He sinks and is nowhere; he sinks and is back where he started, in the wet black, and maybe he was never alive at all, or maybe this is life, the reality of it, the truth, and he sinks.

He sinks, is sinking, like falling through the world and out the other side into the vast expanse of space, spiralling with his arms out waving at the planets as they go by, as he hurtles towards the sun and the sun—

The sun engulfs him and he is gone.

He sinks.

 

He emerges into another dark but there’s a different quality to it; this dark could be broken, he thinks, and there’s something stirring in it, some rustling near him, about him, and he isn’t falling anymore.

Gus, he thinks, Gus. Are you there? He’d been reaching for something in the dark before, hadn’t he? But maybe none of that was real. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe.

He stretches out carefully in his bunk, listening, the small noises a chorus to his thoughts, backing music: what must be the dogs and the air moving like it can’t underwater and bodies around him, substantial, physical here near to him and immeasurably reassuring.

He’s here again, isn’t he?

 

The sun rises and he knows that he wasn’t dreaming the drowning because the relief he feels is not ordinary relief, this is relief that _knows_ , knows what it is like to be alive without light, without anything but himself and his thoughts and his wanting, and his wanting.

Gus smiles at him as he makes notes in his journal, enjoying the way that sun lightens the air, shifting past his face, not like water, not like water; he breathes in and out and in and out and in and out, and writes: _There won’t be sun anymore, soon._

He can’t pretend it was a dream during the day and he can’t pretend it was a dream during the night either, listening to Algie and Gus dreaming and knowing what the cabin sounds like without them, like death, like dying, like drowning, like sinking into himself and never coming back.

 

On the rocks he lurches over his ankle on an insecure foothold and sways towards the sea, lying unnaturally still and waiting, very dark, and Gus catches his elbow and gasps like he’s afraid, but Jack doesn’t feel afraid at all, because he knows how this goes, how drowning would be, seeing his life flash in front of him and all of it only darkness after all.

“Careful,” Gus says, his voice turning in on itself unsure and worried and unhappy.

 

Every morning Jack watches Gus waking before wrenching himself from his bunk. He is always the first awake and the first to rise because he knows what it was like when the routine fell apart. It really wasn’t a dream and there’s nothing to be done. Except maybe to withstand it better this time.

It wasn’t a dream but he’s afraid to sleep anyway, sometimes, because what if he doesn’t wake up? And the sun never rises and it’s just darkness.

So sometimes he just lies awake looking up through the black at nothing and imagines being touched, or touching, and wanting, and wanting.

 

There’s a wary look in Gus’s eyes, some days, and Jack wonders if he knows, if he _knows_ , or more than that even, because after all, Jack was reaching in the dark towards something, wasn’t he? When he drowned. So maybe.

But there’s other explanations for wariness, and maybe Gus can tell that Jack is looking at him differently, looking at him like he knows how space looks without him, how the cabin feels without other people in it, looking at him and knowing that time is running out, and what is he going to do about it?

Maybe Gus can tell that he’s wanting, and maybe knowing that he loves Gus while Gus is still here will ruin everything, and that’s how he knows that it wasn’t a dream. That’s how he really knows. He hadn’t realised this about himself last time.

And what is he going to do about it?

It’s a little uneasy joking with Gus as he writes notes in the evenings, over his shoulder, talking or teasing. Maybe because they are both watching each other differently. And he’s wanting too much, too much, because he knows that time is running out.

He’s too desperate, he crowds too close, and he stays too long before moving away. Gus must notice but he can’t quite stop. He wants to be nearer.

It wasn’t like this the first time, it wasn’t like this at all.

 

And then Gus gets sick again and now the question is screaming at him, striking at his skin from the inside: what are you going to do about it?

He wants, he wants, he wants to tell them that he will go back to Longyearbyen with them, that he won’t stay on alone, and he rehearses the words to himself at night during the three days when Gus won’t admit to them, or to himself, that he’s struggling, and he wants to say them, he does. Nobody could blame him. It’s the sensible thing to do, if they’re prepared to think sensibly.

But it’s colder and colder and colder, and whenever he’s outside, walking and mouthing the words to himself, the waves whip themselves into a frenzy, crashing in on themselves, in on themselves.

Sickeningly he knows that it won’t let him. It won’t be that easy.

Out of the corner of his eye as he turns back towards the cabin there is a dark, shapeless smear hovering on the periphery of his vision, waiting, waiting, and he knows that he must face this alone.

 

So when the moment comes he tells them that he will stay behind, with the same words as before, exactly the same, words fitting his mouth so precisely that it’s as if somebody else is shaping them, taking out the words from his throat in a fist and hurling them into the air where they explode and fall glistening to the ground.

They agree with him, like they had done before, and would do again, and maybe will do again.

He’ll face this alone.

 

The earth revolves. The daylight dwindles to a small smear of almost light, almost life at the horizon and sinks, sinks, sinks, and he is alone. Not alone. Not quite alone.

The dogs leave and he doesn’t call for them and Isaak doesn’t come back and Bjørvik doesn’t come either, must make a different decision, and that’s strange, he thought it would be exactly the same.

He must stick this out to the end, he tells himself, although he isn’t sure why. He isn’t sure why at all.

Sometimes when he’s walking around the cabin in the dark, he wonders why he’s doing this, why he’s doing this, and doesn’t come up with any answers except that he can’t imagine this ending any other way.

He might be weighing up the odds: one death, two deaths, a whole shipful, and which is better, which is better? He doesn’t think there is any way to come out of this cleanly. It _wants_.

But he isn’t weighing it up, not really, not measuring it out or considering it, no, he just _knows._ This is the end of it. There is no other ending. It will end as it starts, in the dark, and Gus will not be with him, he is determined. It will be him alone.

Not quite alone.

 

So the cabin burns, burns, burns, and there is a deep, dark shadow in it somewhere, coming for him, reaching for him, chasing him, and when he stumbles out this time he does not make for the shore.

He runs as the dogs ran, into the black snow, compelled and unthinking, but he isn’t being chased anymore, like he suspects they were, driven. There is something beside him, keeping pace and biding its time.

A ghost, maybe, with no skin left to be touched. Bones and blood and flesh. Maybe. ~~~~

This is nearly the end.

It turns towards him. He can’t see it, he can’t hear it, but he knows. It wants, it wants, it wants. Something.

But hatefully, horribly, he can hear shouting from behind him; they must have come ashore, must have seen the fire, must be trying to find him, and the presence beside him seems to swell, a dark patch in a dark sky, growing, larger than him now, towering.

They are shouting, yelling, louder and louder, and he can hear Eriksson and he can hear Algie and he can hear Gus, hoarse and screaming somebody’s name. They can’t see him, they must think he’s dead. Is he dead?

He falls onto his knees onto the snow, or thinks he does, but then he’s just falling, falling, sinking into the black again, and then out the other side, and then—

 

Waking in the cabin once more, in his bunk, in an earlier night in an earlier body. Much neater.

 

Again?

 

This time he doesn’t fight it, on the rocks, he wrenches away from Gus and falls into cold water that isn’t cold at all, isn’t cold at all, and distantly Gus is screaming, he can hear it, like an animal in pain or dying or both, and for a second he thinks this might be it, the end of the line, but then he’s falling falling falling just like before, into the dark, and he’s gone and he’s gone and he’s waking again in his bunk, alone in his old body, not quite fitting at the seams, still hearing the echoes of the scream, like blood pooling in the back of his skull.

 

Again?

 

He feels like his skin is peeling off, in large bloody strips, can feel fire prickling at his open flesh, and he moves unsteadily, lurching side to side. Maybe he’s going mad. Maybe he always was mad.

He wants, he wants, he wants.

Whenever Gus looks at him, he frowns, concerned, and Jack knows that he is too quiet, too withdrawn, too shrinking, but he can’t be like he was, it’s unbearable.

“Sometimes,” Gus tells him under the aurora, in a brief, fragile, wonderful moment, “I have these odd flashes, like I’ve been here before,” and he’s looking at Jack like he wants to be assured that he isn’t going mad, like he wants justification or confirmation, and everything crashes and shatters and breaks on the ground.

He can’t reply.

Maybe this Gus isn’t real. Maybe Jack is long dead and this is all that’s left afterwards. His life flashing before his eyes, maybe.

His skin itches. Itches. Itches.

 

“Jack,” Gus whispers that evening when they are briefly alone, “You’ve seen it too, haven’t you?” and Gus has never confided this in him before. “You’re acting strangely.”

Jack hasn’t seen it this time, though. He hasn’t seen it at all. Only felt it.

“Yes,” he replies, without meaning to. Something is rising in his throat.

“We should leave,” Gus says.

But he’s uncertain about it and when Jack replies “ _No,_ ” instantly, he nods, though his forehead is creasing and he leans over towards Jack, clearly worried.

His skin itches; he wants to scratch it off.

 

There’s a smear of black over the horizon like dried blood, like stained blood on cloth or snow or wood, like a wound that’s been opened so far that it can’t be closed, and it gapes until it engulfs the whole sky, and Jack closes the door.

 

And what is he going to do? This time.

 

“You can’t stay behind,” Gus insists, his voice weakening, “You can’t, Jack, not this time.” Like he knows.

He wants to agree but he can’t, he can’t. As soon as he thinks it, the wind picks up, sears across his face.

But it hadn’t been satisfied, the time before last time, with only him.

Maybe it’ll never be satisfied. Blood and blood and more blood and not enough. Bottomless pit.

There must be a way out, there must be, there must be. There must be.

But he doesn’t go, he can’t. And Gus doesn’t make him leave, though he wants to. His skin is not warm against Jack’s when they grasp hands.

 

So. Here again.

He opens the door for the dogs this time. It’s supposed to happen, so he does it. They flee from him and are gone into the night. Isaak is with them. They run away from him like animals that are already dead, like ghosts disappearing into ether.

It hurts watching them. But only for a moment.

He sets the cabin alight, because he knows it must happen. It always happens.

The heat from the fire burns at his flesh. He doesn’t move at first. It’s only pain, after all, and he’s felt enough of that.

Only then he is running after all, towards the shore, towards the shore, because it frightens him, and isn’t that strange – he hasn’t felt fear for some time, now, but it’s suddenly urgent in him, overriding everything, screaming at him, so terrible and so much that he stumbles over his own feet, bare against the ground, and he wants he wants he wants.

And as he runs, impossibly, impossibly, Isaak is beside him again, skin and bone and brushing up against his legs.

 He waits at the shore until the light is there again, so sickly and so yellow against the black, but there, _there_ , and Gus is shouting and he runs to him and he grasps with all his strength, animal frightened and entirely raw and unearthed.

He is hauled onto the boat, the metal painfully, bitingly cold under his feet, and doesn’t let go, can’t let go.

His brain seems to shudder in his skull and everything is dark again and he’s falling, but not quite the same, and he wakes this time—

 

—somewhere else, somewhere he hasn’t been before. A very small room with peeling paint and a hard floor.

Gus is sitting on the chair beside his bed, pale and asleep.

Some momentum that Jack has been carrying within him dissipates. His skin is not itching.

“Gus,” he says, uncertainly. Is it not going to start again?

Gus stirs, waking. He wants very much. He isn’t sure what the rules are, in this new space.

Is it over? Really, properly over?

He’s breathing too fast, shakily, like he can’t get enough air, like he must inhale as much as he can before he goes underwater again, before he’s lost again. He can’t make himself stop.

“Jack, Jack,” Gus says and reaches for him, reaches for him, arms getting closer and wrapping around him, warm and strong; he can feel the skin and the bones and the flesh and the tendons and the veins all hanging together like they should be, around him; he leans into the touch and brings up an arm of his own, and hugs Gus tight to him, aware that they are both shaking. Gus’s nose digs into his shoulder.

Muffled, Gus says: “It was all real, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Jack answers. He thinks so. Wasn’t it?

“I kept dreaming that you were running away from me,” Gus says. “And I kept seeing you die, and it didn’t feel like a dream, it felt like it happened.”

He lets himself press closer against Gus, until there’s barely any space between them; it is too much and not enough. It’s more than he’d ever had before. Gus squeezes him tighter fiercely.

“It’s over now,” Gus says.

 

Is it?

He waits in the dark, breathing very little, not quite relaxed, waiting for Gus to come to bed.

And he wonders, as he waits, if it is over. If he won’t fall down there again, after he closes his eyes, if he won’t be lost again; it seems so close, in the dark, where anything could be the same. He could be anywhere and it would be the same dark; he could be back _there_ , he could be anywhere, he could be dead. Maybe none of it happened, and this is the dark of his cramped old room in London.

He wonders, waiting, if _it_ is still there.

He’d donated his foot to science, for all the good it will do, and he wonders, waiting, what will become of it. If the remaining tatters will be burnt – probably – and if so, where will the ashes end up? Float on the waves, drift northwards, make their way back there.

But the rest of him is here, drifting off to sleep in the warmth, without fear, in some kind of life—

—and he wakes only a few minutes later, to the dipping of the mattress and warmth by his side and even, restful breathing, and he falls again, softly, assured that he will wake as usual, to a pale sky.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Temporary character death (including what may be read as a suicide), within the confines of the time loop. No permanent character death. Also, a rather skewed hurt/comfort ratio -- apologies!


End file.
